


Turning

by Judas_is_a_Carrot_Top



Category: Turn A Gundam
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 17:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17349359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judas_is_a_Carrot_Top/pseuds/Judas_is_a_Carrot_Top
Summary: Let the seasons turn again. You know that you cannot command them to be still.





	Turning

You are fifteen when he leaves with your sister, or the girl whom you believe is your sister, even though he says he does not love either of you in that way. So if that’s the case then why did he pick her over you, instead of choosing neither? That’s only the fair way to go.

You think about it during your sparse free time. Why? How dare he! Over and over again, until the birds return along with the leaves; until the earth unselfishly yields itself up into blossom, fruit, and grain; until the birds leave so much like falling leaves; and until all smell of rot. You consider all these in between watching over your mother, and the mines, and all of the responsibilities left to you.

Now it is lovely, breathless winter again- your favorite season. Before you used to think that it is always winter on the moon, because it’s so white, it must be covered with snow. You know better now. It’s dust imperfectly reflecting sunlight that confers whiteness to the moon, and inside the moon it’s always spring.

It has been a year. This ends now. You take his- your- bicycle from the garage and on your way to the river, you cry it out. By the time you’ve flung away his beloved toy you are beyond tears and rage, and are in fact starting to regret your impulsiveness. It’s too late for that now. The water has long carried his toy away. He never did say that he‘d come back for it anyway. You trudge through the snow, feeling like the surface of the moon, but-

Let the seasons turn again. You know that you cannot command them to be still.

You are seventeen years old now. You bear the six holy marks on your back. One day, your mother looks at you and gasps, for you have grown beautiful. And because you are beautiful, you have to comport yourself like a lady. You laugh, but as life is short and you do love your mother after all, you humor her. You dress stylishly. You buy the finest gloves to hide your hands coarsened with calluses, your fingernails always dirty with grease and ink. Men line up to dance with you. They cannot see your hands at all in the dark or low light, or else are too busy to notice. Before you know it, half a decade of dances and dalliances, business deals, and broken machinery have marched by. You are now twenty-two.

It is barely just spring, your least favorite season. You walk along the riverbank. The rushing water and melting ice seem less treacherous than comforting: an end, an end. Your mother died the previous winter. The mines are doing well, there is money to be had, but you feel as if you are on the brink of ruin.

The surface of the moon is bone dry. A spring like this is impossible on the surface of the moon, and yet below-

Remember the rivers teeming with fish.

You keep walking until, downstream, the water whispers instead of rages. Here the river’s almost overgrown with pussy willows. And- could it be?

Here, all tangled up, is his toy goldfish, so much the worse for wear. This is beyond a coincidence. It must have been a cliché planned by the universe. Still. You find a stick long enough to dislodge the toy and force it to float towards you. Laughing for the first time in months, you hold it to your chest despite its dank smell and slime. You take it home and clean it up and hang it over your daughter’s cradle when she is born in late autumn. You briefly consider naming her Dianna, or Kihel, or Laura. You name her after your mother instead.

You take her out, well-wrapped against the cold. Of course people stare, but you think- why should I care about you, I have been to the moon and back. But you stop doing certain things for your daughter’s sake. You will also tell her the truth when she is old enough to ask.

She is five years old. She wants to know why other girls have fathers when she does not, and why must we have corned beef for dinner again. You tell her that you do not know who her father is and to eat her cabbage. Because she is much like you, she reacts with rage and pitches her favorite toy out of the open dining room window. She buries her face in her arms, kicks the table legs, and cries why, why.

You remember wailing with that same grief when you saw your father’s covered face. You hold your daughter tightly as if trying to force your heart back into yourself. You take her outside, where you tell her to stop crying and help you look for her goldfish. She has sharp eyes when they’re not full of tears. She finds it in the flowerbed under the dining room window.

The sunflowers are still in the air warmed by the early evening sun. Your daughter breaks off one bloom and points its heavy head at the long-empty servants’ quarters. He’s there on the stoop of the little wooden cabin, rucksack in hand. You consider each other. 

What will happen should the earth lose its moon, or should its orbit become more distant? Will people keep on living then? Have either of you ever considered that in the dozen years of his absence?

You have, and despite knowing that such a loss means the apocalypse, that such a shift in distance means catastrophe, you have kept on living because you have long decided to stop thinking about what causes you grief. You have told your fifteen-year-old self, silly girl, life goes on, get out of bed and live.

And you have. Here’s the proof in your arms, your daughter with her flowers and fish.

“That’s mine,” he says, nodding at the tin goldfish in your daughter’s hand and smiling at the girl.

“Used to be yours,” you correct him. “Finders, keepers.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think Sochie wanted this piece of fanfic to be written. She always struck me as the kind of girl who'd try to live happily out of spite. 
> 
> I'm ignoring a certain piece of official art showing that Loran got his toy back. Artistic license, etc, etc.


End file.
